Chapter 23

23

The Frederick Arms was twelve or fourteen stories high, gray brick, with bars on the windows of the first- and second-floor apartments. To a kid who grew up in the Palace on Park, it looked more like that Shawshank Redemption prison than an apartment building. And Liz knew right away that we were never going to get inside, let alone to Kenneth Therriault’s apartment. The place was swarming with cops. Lookie-loos were standing in the middle of the street, as close to the police sawhorse barricades as they could get, snapping photos. TV news vans were parked on both sides of the block with their antennas up and cables snaking everywhere. There was even a Channel 4 helicopter hovering overhead.

“Look,” I said. “Stacy-Anne Conway! She’s on NY1!”

“Ask me if I give a shit,” Liz said.

I didn’t.

We had been lucky not to run into reporters at Central Park or City of Angels, and I realized the only reason we hadn’t was because they were all here. I looked at Liz and saw a tear trickling down one of her cheeks. “Maybe we can go to his funeral,” I said. “Maybe he’ll be there.”

“He’ll probably be cremated. Privately, at the city’s expense. No relatives. He outlived them all. I’ll take you home, Champ. Sorry to drag you all this way.”

“That’s okay,” I said, and patted her hand. I knew Mom wouldn’t like me doing that, but Mom wasn’t there.

Liz pulled a U-turn and headed back toward the Queens-boro bridge. A block away from the Frederick Arms, I glanced at a little grocery on my side and said, “Oh my God. There he is.”

She snapped a wide-eyed glance at me. “Are you sure? Are you sure, Jamie?”

I leaned forward and vomited between my sneakers. That was all the answer she needed.